Control and management of pests has proven challenging, costly, illusive, and frequently ineffective. Pests of concern to dairy herdsman include (i) not only the conventional class of arthropods and related classes and orders known as muscoid and nonmuscoid flies, but also (ii) arachnids, a class of mainly terrestrial arthropods comprising spiders, scorpions, mites, ticks, and the like, (iii) ectoparasites, which are parasites living on the surface of an animal, and (iv) endoparasites, parasites living within an animal. Muscoid and nonmuscoid flies, for example, in a wide variety of species, cluster synanthropically to humans and their domestic animals, or in close proximity to humans and domesticated animals such as cows.
Pests are of concern because of their dramatic impact on the economics of animal production, a commercial industry constituting a significant contribution to the gross national product of the United States. The dairy cattle industry has been estimated to produce $12 billion annually. The several different species and classes of flies commonly found on livestock and livestock premises may cause a number of problems, including irritating cows so severely that milk production suffers; transmitting disease pathogens; increasing enteric (intestinal) diseases among humans associated with cow herds; violating regulatory rules and regulations, and generating a host of related problems.
A variety of devices, apparatus and methods have been proposed for controlling pests among cattle, including dairy cows. Except for the apparatus and methods disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,230,660 B1, issued May 15, 2001, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,651,589, issued Nov. 25, 2003, to the sole inventor named in this application, and in the co-pending and allowed application cross-referenced in this document (“Prior Inventions”), none has proven effective in achieving the level of control demanded by industry operators, or providing substantially automated control of pest populations. No other solutions provide apparatus and methods for varying the rate and amount of discharge of ingredients used to combat pests, particularly the rate and amount of chemical discharge, to reduce costs while maintaining pest control on and around animals.
Known proposals for controlling flies attracted to cattle include burying parasites in soil beneath the surface of the soil on which cattle are penned. Other pests, including nematodes, have been introduced into herd locations in hopes of fly control. Flytraps using bait attractants have been used. Those techniques have proven ineffective in controlling fly populations attracted to cattle pens. Parasites achieve control of only a small portion of a fly population, and then only temporarily. Parasites reproduce more slowly than the rate at which flies reproduce, and their hatch rates are unreliable and unpredictable. An effective parasite population also may be reduced because parasites die or fly way. Use of parasites as a method for attempting to control flies among cattle is labor intensive, therefore expensive, usually making the solution unacceptable to an operator of a cattle business. Virtually no control is achieved using nematodes. Nematodes are not suitable for use in acidic soils. Because of the large amounts of manure and urine produced by multiple pens of cattle, all soil used for cattle becomes acidic. In addition, use of nematodes is impractical because nematodes must be applied or introduced into a herd at night, only after rainfall, and reintroduced frequently to achieve any measure of success in controlling pests on an animal and animal herd. No marked reduction of a pest population occurs with use of fly traps. Flytraps, for example, rely on bait. No bait, however, has proven effective for flies, particularly on large tracts of land used to pen large cattle herds.
Spraying or fogging chemicals on cattle has proven marginal in achieving control of flies for long periods of time. Fogging causes droplet drift, so fogging is not cost effective. For similar reasons, aerial spraying has proven no more effective than use of fly parasites, nematodes, and fly traps using bait attractants.
Other proposals for controlling pests among cattle include feeding cows oral larvicide and applying residual pesticides on the underside of shaders. No significant long-term reduction in the fly population has been observed using an oral larvicide, primarily because no chemical that might work effectively against flies may be fed orally to milking cattle. Even more primitive devices have been used, such as back rubbers, both manuals and automated. A manual back rubber applicator requires an operator to periodically remove, dip into a chemical, and reinstall a rubber device above the back of a cow that walks beneath the rubber device. No noticeable difference, however, in fly population has been observed using this method, and automated variations have proven no more effective. Ear tags, or other apparatus attachable to parts of an animal's body, containing a liquid chemical or pesticide dispensable on an animal, also have not satisfied the industry requirements for an apparatus that provides substantially complete control of the fly population in the form of a substantially automated system requiring relatively little attention during operation. Ear tags or similar apparatus connectable to parts of an animal body cannot be designed to release or apply sufficient chemicals either to an animal or to flies.
Attempting to control pests by spraying underneath shaders, direct spraying of roosting flies, and spraying vegetation near cattle pens, also are ineffective. Those techniques may eliminate problems associated with food and water contamination, but are labor intensive and expensive. An average dairy herd, for example, requires six to seven hours to complete one such spraying cycle, a cycle that must be repeated often to achieve even minimal control. A problem encountered by these methods is the tendency of flies to change roosting areas regularly, requiring an operator to hunt fly roosting areas to effectively induce a spray.
Larvicide spraying has not proven feasible because of the huge volume of water required to penetrate at least three inches below the surface of soil where fly larvae feed. The typical service truck carries only 500 gallons of water, and for a cattle herd held in a common arrangement of twelve pens, the cost of frequent larvicide applications is prohibitive.
As the inventor named in this document has disclosed in prior applications and patents, a mixture that includes at least one chemical and at least one oil, although expensive, has proven the most effective combination of ingredients to control pests among bovines, particularly in dairy environments. As used in this document, the term “carrier-based chemical mixture” or “mixture of carrier-based ingredients” includes a wide variety of carriers such as oil, silicon, polymers, gels, and thickening agents that are chemically inert and that are useful in connection with the improved automated carrier-based pest control system. Also as used in this document, the term “chemical” includes, as non-exclusive examples, pyrethroids, organopolysiloxanes, organophosphates, and systemic endoparisites, among others. The term “wax” as used in this document means one or more natural or synthetic substances having a high molecular weight but low melting points, and including as a non-exclusive example, fatty acid esters of alcohols, such as glycerol. Accordingly, it would be of considerable advantage to provide an automated carrier-based pest control system for applying a mixture of carrier-based ingredients on bovines assembled in herds that employs the advantages of one or more waxes.